SparklyHorn's Short Stories Shelf

The Lightning Weaver

[Written January 2021]

The elegant orchestral music plays when my father strides into the ballroom, chest puffed, and smile glistening. All around me decorated people clap politely

He stops at the front of the stage, and you could hear a pin drop on the floor through the silence. I remember his heartfelt words, the speech a gracious gift to all who heard it. A smile stuck to my lips through the entirety of his gentle words.

My father was crowned king that same night, and the little boy I was at the time thought that this was the best life could get. I thought that nothing could ever change. I thought the best was permanent.

The day it all fell apart is a constant ache in my mind. It was early morning, and I was at my fathers' bedside as we played a game of cards. I was winning, but he always let me with the first hand.

A sharp knock comes to the door and the head knight steps in without a welcoming word from my father. I should have known something was wrong, but I childishly brushed the obscure actions aside.

The knight told my father of the courts' assembly. My father was to be put on trial for felony against the agreement of peace between us and another kingdom. My father began to protest, but set his jaw and instructed the knight to tell the assembly that he would be there.

My world turned upside down when my father put down his hand of cards to prepare himself for the assembly. That was the day my life crumbled around me.

The court proved my father guilty while the sun was still in the sky. He was stripped of his crown before the evening meal

We were on the streets that night. All I had known before then was a life of ease and perfection. No one expected anything from me except to stay in bed when I was ill and to get out of it when I felt well. My father and I instantly were forced to depend on each other in a way that I had never experienced.

Although the beginning of our poverty is a blur in my memories, I remember one conversation we had. He and I were walking through the town at dawn, on our way to a blacksmith. My father was hoping for us to find work there, telling me he always had a knack for hot things.

I asked, "But when will we return to the castle?" As if this all was nothing more than a vacation.

"I will never return to that castle, my boy. But, you? Well, you one day may be able to."

"But, why not? Why don't the people want you as their king? You have done nothing but help everyone." I protested.

He sighed, a thing he didn't do much when he was a king. "Because these people do not believe in peace."

We could not find work in the capital. Right before the turn of winter, we were forced to travel away in an attempt to locate work, shelter, and food.

My father became very ill during our travels that winter. A widowed woman felt sorry for us and brought us into her home. She told us that we could stay until my father was well. She was like a fairy godmother to me, but her magic could not make miracles.

On a thin cot, my father lay in his death bed. Right before sleep that evening, be beckoned me close to him. "My boy," he whispered to me weakly. "You must know how you will continue alone."

"But father," I protest. "Won't we live together?"

"No, I will not continue this journey alongside you. It has become clear to me that this is a journey that you must endeavor alone." He pulls something out from under his shirt, closing it into his palm, and then puts his hands around mine. "Take this to the peak of the northernmost mountain. There, harness the storm and follow it to the lost isle. this is where you will learn our truth and what must be protected. I will always be with you, my son." His voice drops and his eyes fall closed. A charm on a tie of thin rope falls into my thin hands.